Networks, such as public and/or private networks, can be large and complicated. For example, the network architecture of a large company may span many locations, such as data centers, cities, states, countries, and continents. Furthermore, the network architecture of a large company may be divided into a variety of different structures, each of which may provide different services external and/or internal to the company.
Managing network traffic so that networks operate efficiently can be a difficult task. Managing network traffic can be particularly difficult in large networks, such as data centers, which can contain many computing devices communicating on the same network. In some situations, excessive network traffic can overload network controllers and result in dropped network packets or hardware or software failures (e.g., a network device or component may crash).
In some solutions, network traffic can be managed by networking equipment, such as network routers and switches, using rules and policies. However, such network traffic monitoring devices can be expensive and time consuming to manage.